With the release of Empires, how Possession works has been changed. Now, when Possessing someone, the Possessing player also gains all tokens taken during the Possessed turn. This is in contrast to the Official FAQ as originally published. The exception to this is Pirate Ship Coin tokens, which would still be put on the Possessed player's mat.

I believe this was not implemented yet. I figured out today when I used Ferry to reduce Possession cost in a Possessed turn (it did not work out as I thought ) Should I report this in MF forum or here is fine?

Just wondering if all you wonderful people can explain (again most likely) when/where/why this change of rule was made.

That reddish hexagon means you don't pay for City Quarter or Royal Blacksmith up front. Instead you take some tokens that say how much you owe. While you have the tokens, you can't buy cards or Events. Those are the only things you can't do; you can still play cards, including the one that got you into Debt if you draw that one; you can still trash cards and get attacked and win the game and so on. You can pay off Debt tokens in your Buy phase, before and/or after buying cards, at $1 per token. So, you have $4, you buy City Quarter, you get 8 Debt, you pay off 4 of it immediately, you have 4 debt left. In your next Buy phase, if you had $6, you could pay off the rest of your Debt and then have $2 left to spend. Get it? It's pretty simple. The one tricky thing is how these things work when cards compare costs. There it works like Potion: apples and oranges. A reddish hexagon with an 8 isn't more or less than $3. There's a rulebook, okay? It covers all the tricky things. And uh why a hexagon, why that color? The physical tokens are reddish hexagons.

So City Quarter is one of these things, it costs $8 but you don't need any $ up front. You can buy it with $0 and a leftover Buy. But you'll be paying it off before you buy more things and well I went over that already. So uh City Quarter. It looks snazzy. You could draw so many cards. And it's a Village too, which helps you play those cards you had to have to draw those other cards.

Oh right. I forgot to mention it, but Possession is getting errata. No joke, errata. It will now cause the possessing player to also get all tokens the other player would have gotten. This means they will also get VP tokens, which wasn't the point, but was the simplest way to make debt + Possession not suck.

Does the changed rule also apply when playing without any Empire cards?

Yes it's a permanent rule change errata from Donald X for all cards with VP tokens.

And coin tokens. And debt tokens. I don't know for sure if the exact wording will automatically include any future tokens. I know that it doesn't include Pirate Ship tokens, but that's because Pirate Ship tokens aren't tokens in the same sense as those other ones; they're simply a counter that you use to mark how many times something has happened.

Does the changed rule also apply when playing without any Empire cards?

Yes it's a permanent rule change errata from Donald X for all cards with VP tokens.

And coin tokens. And debt tokens. I don't know for sure if the exact wording will automatically include any future tokens. I know that it doesn't include Pirate Ship tokens, but that's because Pirate Ship tokens aren't tokens in the same sense as those other ones; they're simply a counter that you use to mark how many times something has happened.

Any future tokens that you "take" will be affected; the ruling is that you get all the tokens the possessed player would have gotten. Pirate Ship tokens are uh not taken, but rather added to your mat in the same way that VP tokens are added to Gathering piles. And Pirate Ship itself needs errata to correct this.

Tokens put on piles, such as, uh, the -2 cost token a la ferry, aren't taken, either. So tje guy quoted in the OP was actually wrong in assuming that it would be his token

None of the player tokens from Adventures are affected, right? I mean, they all talk about "your" token, and "you" is the Possessed player. It would be weird if I Possessed you, bought Ball, and took your -$1 token. (Great for you though; no more -$ token!)

Tokens put on piles, such as, uh, the -2 cost token a la ferry, aren't taken, either. So tje guy quoted in the OP was actually wrong in assuming that it would be his token

None of the player tokens from Adventures are affected, right? I mean, they all talk about "your" token, and "you" is the Possessed player. It would be weird if I Possessed you, bought Ball, and took your -$1 token. (Great for you though; no more -$ token!)

Tentatively ruling that the possessing player does in fact take the -$1 or -1 Card token. The wording on e.g. Ball is the same as e.g. Candlestick Maker.

Possession doesn't interact with the +1 Action token etc., because they aren't taken, they are put somewhere. This would be the same for Pirate Ship with a better wording.

It says to take "your" (the Possessed player's) token. I don't see how any reasonable interpretation of the text could possibly result in anyone taking the Possessor's token.

Well I am looking at the cards and that's how I see it. Ball says "Take your -$1 token." I Possess you. Possession says "cards or tokens" ("gain" isn't the precise word, but there's only so much room on a card and Possession is already microtext). So, I Possess you and make you buy Ball, I take *your* -$1 token.

It says to take "your" (the Possessed player's) token. I don't see how any reasonable interpretation of the text could possibly result in anyone taking the Possessor's token.

Well I am looking at the cards and that's how I see it. Ball says "Take your -$1 token." I Possess you. Possession says "cards or tokens" ("gain" isn't the precise word, but there's only so much room on a card and Possession is already microtext). So, I Possess you and make you buy Ball, I take *your* -$1 token.

Yeah, I misunderstood. So the Possessor gets the Possessed's token. Weird, but it makes sense. At first I thought you were saying that the Possessor would take their own token.

It goes to Token Limbo, with all of the other tokens players don't have. In practice players may choose to separate Token Limbo into different areas around the table, but that's just players making things convenient for themselves.

Presumably you can take -$1 tokens directly from other players. I will venture a guess that if any -$1 token is taken from you, the penalty also goes away.

My first thought was no because if you Possess me and I already have the -$1 token, I wouldn't be taking the token and so you don't take it. You take tokens I would take and I wouldn't take that one.

My second thought is, how do you even manage this. You can't buy Ball without $5. If you got $ it already returned the token. Bridge Troll doesn't do the trick here either.

If I Possess you and make you buy Ball twice, the second time, you would take the token from me, so I take it instead, but I already have it so I fail to. The way this technically plays out involves considering this, but what actually happens isn't different from if you couldn't take it from me.

Presumably you can take -$1 tokens directly from other players. I will venture a guess that if any -$1 token is taken from you, the penalty also goes away.

My first thought was no because if you Possess me and I already have the -$1 token, I wouldn't be taking the token and so you don't take it. You take tokens I would take and I wouldn't take that one.

My second thought is, how do you even manage this. You can't buy Ball without $5. If you got $ it already returned the token. Bridge Troll doesn't do the trick here either.

If I Possess you and make you buy Ball twice, the second time, you would take the token from me, so I take it instead, but I already have it so I fail to. The way this technically plays out involves considering this, but what actually happens isn't different from if you couldn't take it from me.

I possess you and make you buy Ball, taking your -$1 token. Then you take your normal turn and also buy Ball. What happens?

Wow, that was a very weird ruling. I see that it only applies to Ball. It would be so much better if Ball said to turn your -$1 token over (which is how we play it) or to put it somewhere, instead of "taking" it.

First I thought it meant not having a -$1 token again, ever, in this game. But I see that it only means losing it right now and then you can get it back later.

So it means that your token can affect me? Your -$1 token will have the same effect on me as my own -$1 token? So I can actually have two -$1 tokens? And the next time I get $, I can choose which one to lose first? Even the idea that another player's token can work for me, is pretty counter-intuitive to the rules for the tokens.

I really wish that Ball would get a fix like Pirate Ship about this, just to avoid a ton of confusion and strangeness.